Ouverture Tape deck issues – New Belt installed, pinch rollers not engaging?

[Neil]

Hei,

Finally got around to tackling the broken tape deck on my Ouverture.
Ordered a new belt from DKSoundParts.com, followed a german video to access the desk and managed to swap in the new drive band.
Yes, the old band was a sticky mess in the middle of the mechanism.

Put everything back together and tape engaged, unit shut down and that was that.
I then found this post and the ‘Big Clac’ needed to reset the mechanism.
Disassembled again, forced the mechanism until the capstans spun freely. Reassembled the unit.

Where I am now:

Tape mechanism is functional in all but actually playing a tape.

• Fast forward / rewind run smoothly
• Tape head mechanism engages, then switches direction before disengaging with the display reading “Tape <>” (Is this a Tape standby mode?)
• The capstans rotate continuously while Tape <> is displayed.

All I can take from the front view is that the pinch rollers are a good few mm off the capstans while the tape is in ‘Tape <‘ or ‘Tape >’ mode. The tape reels are static… not sure if the capstans are the drive while the tape is being read, or if there is a mechanism that isn’t lifting the pinch rollers up enough while also engaging the tape reels in the correct direction.

Wild card would be that the pinch rollers are too small – rubber has shrunk? But there is very little gap between the pinch roller and the tape guide that pops up along side it, so… seems unlikely.

Any suggestions before I start another teardown?

• This topic was modified 3 weeks, 1 day ago by Neil.
• This topic was modified 3 weeks, 1 day ago by Neil. Reason: Formating
• This topic was modified 3 weeks, 1 day ago by Neil.
• This topic was modified 3 weeks, 1 day ago by Neil.

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[Neil]

Well, good news…. found the issue.

It was the tape head spring assembly that was not lying flat and was obstructing the tape head assembly from fully engaging…
This was the culprit:

I can lock it in on the left side, but it would not stay in place on the right side and just pops out on first use. Not sure if the small piece of plastic is to blame or not.

There was also a tiny ball bearing which sits behind this spring, but I turned my back on it and its just gone now.

Googled a few images of the Ouverture tape mech and looks like half of them were missing this entirely – so I simply removed it and rebuilt everything once again.

So now I have a fully functional tape mech and only a few parts left over…

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